The Princess Bride Read online

  Lettie was still in residence, because Tiffany had begged her to stay. The house was big and empty without Harrison, but Lettie made it bearable. And on the rare occasions when King was home, their meals weren’t silent ones. Lettie carried on conversations with herself if no one else participated, which amused Tiffany no end.

  She hadn’t paid much attention to the date. She’d grieved for two long weeks, crying every time she saw familiar things of her father’s, adjusting to life without him. But just as she was getting used to the lonely house, another unexpected complication presented itself.

  Tiffany suddenly started losing her breakfast. She’d never had any such problems before, and even if it was too soon for tests, deep inside she knew that she was pregnant. She went from boundless joy to stifling fear in a matter of seconds as she realized how this news was going to affect her husband. Her hands went protectively to her flat stomach and she groaned out loud.

  She couldn’t tell him. He wouldn’t want the baby, and he might even suggest…alternatives. There wasn’t an option she was willing to discuss. She was going to have her baby, even if she had to leave him and hide it away. That meant that she had to keep her condition secret.

  At first it was easy. He was never home. But as the demands of business slowed a couple of weeks later, he began to come home earlier. And he was attentive, gentle with Tiffany, as if he were trying to undo their rocky beginning and start over.

  It wounded her to the quick to have to withdraw from those sweet overtures, because she needed him now more than at any time in their shared past. But it was too great a risk to let him come close. Her body was changing. He wasn’t stupid. If he saw her unclothed, there were little signs that even a bachelor might notice.

  Her behavior surprised him, though, because they’d become much closer after Harrison’s death. He’d had business demands that had kept him away from home, and he’d deliberately made very few demands on Tiffany just after her father’s death, to give her time to adjust. But now, suddenly, she was talking about going back to modeling in New York, with Lettie to keep her company.

  King worried about her attitude. He’d been kept busy with the transfer of authority and stocks and the implementation of Harrison’s will, not to mention tracking down the elusive accountant. Perhaps she’d thought he wasn’t interested in her feelings. That wasn’t true. But when he tried to talk to her, she found dozens of excuses to get out of his vicinity.

  Even Lettie was puzzled and remarked about Tiffany’s coldness to the man, when he’d done so much for them. But Tiffany only smiled and ignored every word she said. Even from Lettie, the bouts of nausea were carefully concealed. No one was going to threaten her baby, Tiffany told herself. Not even Lettie, who might unwittingly let the cat out of the bag.

  She talked about going to New York, but all the while, she was checking into possible escape routes. She could fly anywhere in the world that she wanted to go. Even without her father’s fortune, she had a legacy from her mother, which guaranteed her a tidy fixed sum every month paid into her personal checking account. She could live quite well and take care of her child. All she needed was a place to go.

  King found her one afternoon poring over travel brochures, which she gathered with untidy haste and stuffed back into a folder as if she’d been caught stealing.

  “Planning a trip?” he asked, scowling as he stood over her.

  She sat forward on the sofa. “Who, me? No!” She cleared her throat. “Well, not immediately, at least. I thought…” She hesitated while she tried to formulate an answer that would throw him off the track.

  “Heard from your friend Mark?” he asked abruptly.

  “Mark?” She’d all but forgotten her modeling friend, although she saw Lisa occasionally, and Lisa certainly heard from him. They were becoming an item. “I believe he’s in Greece,” she added. “Doing a commercial for some swimwear company.”

  “Yes, he is,” King replied thoughtfully. “I saw Lisa’s father at a civic-club meeting this week. He said that the two of them are quite serious.”

  “I’m glad,” Tiffany said. “Mark’s had a hard life. So has Lisa, in some ways. She’s always had money, but her father is a very domineering sort. I hope he isn’t planning to throw a stick into their spokes.”

  “Apparently Lisa’s threatened to run away if he does,” he mused, and smiled. “Love does make a woman brave, I suppose.”

  She could have made a nasty remark about Carla, but she let it go and made some careless remark.

  “Don’t you eat breakfast anymore?” he asked abruptly.

  She jumped. “I… Well, no, I don’t, really,” she stammered. “I’ve gotten into bad habits since Daddy died,” she added with a nervous laugh. “Breakfast reminds me too much of him.”

  “Which is still no reason to starve yourself, is it?”

  She shifted, tracing a flower in the pattern on her skirt. “I’m not starving myself. I just don’t like eating breakfast at the table. I have it in my room.”

  He stood there without speaking, frowning, jingling the loose change in his pocket.

  She glanced at the clock and then at him. “Aren’t you home early?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He moved to the armchair beside the sofa and dropped into it. “I thought you might like to know that we’ve found the runaway accountant.”

  “Have you really!”

  He chuckled at her radiance. “Vengeful girl. Yes, he thought he’d gotten clean away. He was passing the time in luxurious splendor on a private island in the Bahamas when some rogue popped a bag over his head, trussed him up like a duck, and carted him off to a sailboat. He was hauled onto the beach in Miami and summarily arrested.”

  “Do we know rogues who would do such a thing?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Of course we do!”

  “Does he still have any money?”

  “All but a few thousand,” he replied. “He confessed wholeheartedly when faced with a long prison term for his pains. He offered to give the money back without any prompting. To do him credit, he was sorry about Harrison.”

  “My father might still be here, if it hadn’t been for that skunk. I won’t shed any tears for him,” she muttered. “I hope he isn’t going to get off with a slap on the wrist.”

  “Not a chance,” he replied. “He’ll serve time. And he’ll never get another job of trust.”

  “I suppose that’s something. But it won’t bring Daddy back.”

  “Nothing will do that.”

  She crossed her legs and glanced at King. He was restless and irritable. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I wish I didn’t have to tell you.”

  She sat up, bracing herself for anything. After what she’d just come through, she felt that she could take it on the chin, though, whatever it was. She was stronger than she’d ever been.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Whatever it is, I can take it.”

  He looked at her, saw the new lines in her face, the new maturity. “How you’ve changed, Tiffany,” he murmured absently.

  “Stop stalling,” she said.

  He let out a hollow laugh. “Am I? Perhaps so.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms across his knees. “I want you to see a doctor.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Me? What for?”

  “Because we’re married,” he replied evenly. “And I’ve gone without you for as long as I can. That being the case, you have to make some sort of preparation about birth control. We can’t have any more lapses.”

  Steady, girl, she told herself. You can’t give the show away now. She swallowed. “You said that you’d take care of it,” she hedged.

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he reflected with a laugh. “And you remember how efficiently I did it, don’t you?” he asked pointedly.

  She flushed. “It was…unexpected.”

  “And exquisite,” he said quietly. “I dream about how it was. I’ve tried to wait, to give you time to get over the trauma of losing Harri
son. But, to put it bluntly, I’m hurting. I want you.”

  She felt her cheeks go hot. She still wasn’t sophisticated enough for this sort of blunt discussion. “All right,” she said. “I’ll see the doctor.”

  “Good girl.” He got up and moved toward the sofa, reaching down to pull her up into his arms with a long sigh. “I miss you in my bed, Tiffany,” he murmured as he bent to her mouth. “I want you so badly…!”

  His mouth opened on hers and she moaned harshly at the pleasure of his embrace. She reached up and held him around the neck, pressing her body to his, moving provocatively, involuntarily.

  He groaned harshly and his hands went to her waist to pull her closer. Then, suddenly, he stilled. Holding her rigidly, he lifted his head. His breath seemed to catch in his throat. His eyes looked straight into hers. And while she was trying to decide what had made him stop, his hands smoothed with deliberation over her thick waist and, slowly, down over the faint swell of her stomach.

  His face changed. She knew the instant he began to suspect. It was all there, the tautness, the shock, the horror.

  She jerked away from him, her face stiff with pain. The breath she drew was painful.

  He let his arms fall to his sides. The look he sent to her belly would have won a photo contest.

  “No, I won’t.” She choked out the words before he could speak. She backed toward the door. “I won’t do anything about it, I don’t care what you say, what you do! It’s mine, and I’m going to have it! Do you hear me, I’m going to have it!”

  She whirled and ran toward the staircase, desperate to reach the sanctuary of her room. She could lock the door and he couldn’t get in, she could outrun him! But out of the corner of her eye, she saw him racing toward her. She’d never make the staircase, not at the speed he was running.

  She turned at the last second and went toward the front door, panic in her movements, nausea in her throat. She jerked open the front door and forgot the rain that had made the brick porch as slick as glass. Her feet went out from under her and she fell with a horrible, sickening thud, right on her back.

  “Tiffany!”

  King’s exclamation barely registered. She knew every bone in her body was broken. She couldn’t even breathe, much less talk. She had the breath knocked completely out of her. She stared at his white face and didn’t really see it at all.

  “My…baby,” she moaned with the only bit of breath she could muster.

  King knelt beside her, his hands running over her gently, feeling for breaks while he strangled on every breath he took. There was a faint tremor in his long fingers.

  “Don’t try to move,” he said uneasily. “Dear God…!” He got up and went back to the doorway. “Lettie! Lettie, get an ambulance, she’s fallen!”

  “Is she all right?” Lettie’s wail came out the door.

  “I don’t know. Call an ambulance!”

  “Yes, dear, right now…!”

  King knelt beside Tiffany and took her cold, nerveless hand in his. The rain was coming down steadily beyond the porch, like a curtain between the two of them and the world.

  Tiffany sucked in shallow breaths. Tears ran down her cheek. One hand lifted to her stomach. She began to sob. “My baby,” she wept. “My baby!”

  “Oh, God, don’t!” he groaned. He touched her wet cheeks with the backs of his fingers, trying to dry the tears. “You’re all right, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine…Lettie! For God’s sake!”

  Lettie came at a run, pausing at the slick porch. “I’ve phoned, and they’re on the way right now.” She moved onto the wet surface and looked down at Tiffany. “Oh, my dear,” she groaned, “I’m so sorry!”

  Tiffany was beyond words. She couldn’t seem to stop crying. The tears upset King more than she’d ever seen anything upset him. He found his handkerchief and dried her wet eyes, murmuring to her, trying to comfort her.

  She closed her eyes. She hurt all over, and she’d probably lost the baby. She’d never get another one. He’d make sure that she took precautions from now on, she’d grow old without the comfort of a child, without the joy of holding her baby in her arms…

  The sobs shook her.

  King eased down beside her, regardless of the wet floor, and his big hand flattened gently over her flat stomach, pressing tenderly.

  “Try not to worry,” he whispered at her lips. He kissed her softly, and his hand moved protectively. “The baby’s all right. I know he is.”

  Chapter 11

  Tiffany couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Her eyes opened and looked straight into his.

  “You don’t want it,” she whispered.

  He drew in a rough breath and his hand spread even more. “Yes, I do,” he said quietly. “I want both of you.”

  She could barely get enough breath to speak, and before she could find the words, the ambulance drowned out even her thoughts as it roared up at the front steps and two EMTs disembarked.

  She was examined and then put into the ambulance. King went with her, promising Lettie that he’d phone the minute he knew anything.

  Tiffany felt him grasp her hand as the ambulance started up again. “You’re forever taking me away in ambulances,” she whispered breathlessly.

  He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm hungrily. “Wherever you go, I go, Tiffany,” he said. But his eyes were saying other things, impossible things. They took the rest of her breath away.

  She was taken to the local emergency room and checked thoroughly, by the family physician who was doing rounds.

  Dr. Briggs chuckled at her when he’d finished his tests and had the results, over an hour later. “I heard about your wild ride in Montego Bay. Now, here you are in a fall. Maybe marriage doesn’t agree with you,” he teased, having known her from childhood.

  “It agrees with her,” King murmured contentedly, watching her with open fascination. “So will having a baby to nurse.” He glanced at Briggs. “Is she?”

  He nodded, smiling complacently at Tiffany’s gasp and radiant smile. “I don’t imagine we’ll have much trouble computing a delivery date,” he added wickedly.

  Tiffany flushed and King chuckled.

  “One time,” he murmured dryly. “And look what you did,” he accused.

  “What I did!” she exclaimed.

  “I only plant. I don’t cultivate.”

  She burst out laughing. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All that talk about not wanting babies, and here he sat grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “He’ll strut for a while,” the doctor told her. “Then he’ll start worrying, and he won’t do any more strutting until after the delivery. You’ll have to reassure him at frequent intervals. Expectant fathers,” he said on a sigh, “are very fragile people.”

  “She’ll have to have an obstetrician,” King was murmuring aloud. He glanced at Briggs. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” the doctor mused.

  “A good obstetrician.”

  “I don’t refer pregnant women to any other kind,” he was assured.

  “We’ll need to find a good college, too—”

  Tiffany started to protest, but King was at the window, talking to himself and Dr. Briggs held up a hand.

  “Don’t interrupt him,” he told Tiffany. “He’s considering all the other appropriate families in town who have baby daughters. He’ll have to have the right wife—”

  “It could be a girl,” she interjected.

  “Heresy!” the doctor said in mock alarm.

  “Shouldn’t we point that out?” she continued, glancing at King.

  Dr. Briggs shook his head. “A man has to have dynastic dreams from time to time.” He smiled. “You’re fine, Tiffany. A few bruises, but nothing broken and that baby is firmly implanted. Just don’t overdo during the first trimester. Call me Monday and I’ll refer you to an obstetrician. I do not,” he added, “deliver babies. I like sleeping at night.”

  “Are babies born a
t night?”

  “From what I hear, almost all of them,” he said with a chuckle.

  King took her home, still reeling with his discoveries. He carried her inside, cradling her like a treasure.

  Lettie met them at the door, wringing her hands. “You didn’t phone,” she said accusingly.

  “He was too busy arranging the wedding,” Tiffany replied.

  Lettie looked blank. “Wedding?”

  “Our son’s.”

  “Son.” Lettie still looked blank. Then her face flushed with glorious surprise. “You’re pregnant!”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Lettie gnawed her lip and shot a worried glance at King.

  “I know,” he said wearily. “I’ll have to eat boiled crow for the next month, and I deserve to.” He shrugged, holding Tiffany closer. “I didn’t know how it was going to feel,” he said in his own defense, and he smiled with such tenderness that electricity seemed to run through her relaxed body. “What an incredible sensation.”

  Tiffany smiled and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m sleepy,” she said, yawning.

  King glanced at Lettie. “I’m going to put her to bed.”

  “That’s the best place for her,” Lettie said with a warm smile. “Let me know if you need anything, dear,” she told Tiffany, and bent to kiss the flushed cheek.

  “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Lettie.”

  King was grinning from ear to ear all the way up the staircase, and he never seemed to feel her weight at all, because he wasn’t even breathing hard by the time they reached the top.

  “You don’t want children,” she murmured drowsily. “You said so.”

  “We’re all entitled to one stupid mistake.” He carried her to his room, not hers, and laid her gently on the coverlet. His eyes were solemn as he looked down at her. “For what it’s worth, I do want this child. I want it very much. Almost as much as I want you.”

  She flushed. “King, Dr. Briggs said—” she began cautiously.